Our team began with 19 sales reps and now we’re down to 14. Among those original members, 2 quit, 2 had to leave due to family issues, and 1 got fired.

Today’s daily training video featured the CEO telling us ‘You can quit whenever you want, but once a quitter, always a quitter. Don’t give up on yourself or you’ll make a habit of it in the future.‘ I don’t really believe in that. People quit for different reasons. I’m sure he did some research and found that around Day 19 is when most new reps feel like quitting so they placed the video on this day.

Almost every three days I’ve contemplated leaving. It’s just so emotionally demanding. It breaks you down.

Today I sat on a curb feeling defeated once again. I pulled out my iPad, hopped on Evernote, and drew out two columns. On the left, I wrote out an exhaustive list of all my fears and all the reasons I don’t think this job is a good fit for me. On the right, what I could do to solve it.

Here’s what it looked like:

By writing down my fears, I was able to better understand their nature and show myself that I was in control and that I was mentally blowing my fears out of proportion.

The last point at the bottom carried a lot of weight for me. My mind strongly relies on facts and numbers to prove things to myself.. so seeing that these 4 months were less than 0.1% of the time I have to spend in my life.. made this whole thing seem minuscule in the grand scheme of things.

Everyone goes through hardship in their life, but it is in these darkest moments of our lives where we learn the deepest lessons.

It’s kind of like venturing super deep into a dark cave and finding a treasure chest of wisdom at the bottom.I affirm to not quit no matter what.

Day 06: Today I slowly crept up to a medium sized house on the corner of the street. There was only one car in driveway, which is usually an indication that only one of the home owners are present (and consequently only half of the decision makers.. which are not good prospects) Nonetheless, I decided to go with it any way.

A friendly man opened the door, and even took a step forward onto his doorstep; a sign of interest and willingness to listen. As soon as I showed him the doorbell camera, he was immediately interested. He loved the idea of being able to check his smartphone to see when his kids come home from school, and being able to remotely unlock the doors for them in case they forget their keys. With just a few questions here and there, he was happy to sign up.

I talked to him about his work in water sanitation. He explained how some people in the rural areas of Halifax use water well systems so his work with Halifax Water ensures people have clean drinking water.

Top left: Mr. T happily standing with his wife in front of his newly installed system. Bottom left: A pack of Dad’s Oatmeal Cookies and a cup of freshly brewed green tea that they kindly offered me, as we patiently watched the technicians get their drills and wires ready for the installation. Right photo: Screenshot of the company scoreboard showing my new high score of “1”.

The downside to such a demoralizing day of work is that it deals a sharp blow to your self-esteem, and makes you question your capabilities. You feel like you want to quit and go home.

The upside is that it forces you to re-evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. In today’s training, my manager told us quite frankly:

“This job shows you if you are weak or strong. You will know very quickly.”

I’d certainly say he’s right. Within two hours of working the job, I did feel weak. But, we know that necessity is the best motivator. I must necessarily get better at what I do if I want to stop having negative experiences with customers.

Sure, I haven’t landed a single sale yet. But I have numbers to prove to myself that I’m getting better at what I do. This is what keeps me going and keeps me from going insane.

A coworker explained the concept of Zorro Circles to help me with this. The following story is from the movie The Mask of Zorro:

When Zorro first started out he had no focus and no control. He wanted to do too much, too quickly. His training began with the drawing of a single circle in the sand. Don Diego told Zorro that his entire world now existed within this circle, and he had to master what was inside of it before he could move on to the next circle. Through time and dedication, Zorro mastered circle by circle. As he learned how to command his emotions and began to understand and utilise his skills, he eventually had the ability to accomplish his goal. (His goal in this case being to take on the army. No big deal.)

Source: Geckoboard

So for the meantime – I’ll be like Zorro. Just focused on the small circles around me that I can control and master.

Have you ever worked a job where you felt so emotionally bombed that you were afraid of showing up at work the next day?

Have you ever had a rejection so visceral that you sat on the curb for 90 minutes demoralized, contemplating your life? You ask yourself “why am I doing this job?”. A voice of self-doubt whispers “maybe this job is not for me. I just wasn’t made for this. I don’t think I can go on any further.”

It’s no doubt that entrepreneurs are the rock stars of our decade. They are considered to be the coolest, richest, most courageous people defeating all odds to put their products in the market. People seem to talk about Steve Jobs more than Stephen Harper!

Now, ‘entrepreneur’ is a pretty broad term. I mean, even those working at Multi-Level Marketing companies call themselves entrepreneurs. In this article, when I say ‘entrepreneur’ I’m really talking about being a founder in a (tech) startup.

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About Me:

My name is Ryan Ing and I’m a former business student at Ryerson University.

I started this blog to help other business students out there by sharing my career journey: the ups, the downs, but most importantly, the grind.

You’re not alone out there. You’re not the only one trying to land your dream job upon graduation. You’re not the only one reading books out there to get smarter. You’re not the only one grinding. So join me on this journey.